Officials Link Clinic Blasts And Bombing At '96 Games

Federal authorities have uncovered physical evidence that for the first time links the fatal bombing at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta with bomb attacks at abortion clinics in Atlanta in January 1997 and in Birmingham, Ala., last month, law-enforcement officials said today.

The evidence connecting the bombings includes new forensic information emerging from the inquiry. Investigators have concluded that small steel plates built into the Olympic bomb, apparently designed to force the blast in one direction, matched the metal plates in two bombs planted at an abortion clinic in the Atlanta suburb of Sandy Springs, the Federal officials said.

The investigators have determined that the plates were cut from steel found in a search of a metalworking plant in Franklin, N.C., that employed a friend of Eric Robert Rudolph, who is wanted in the Birmingham bombing, which killed an off-duty police officer, officials said.

The threads that weave the bombings together do not directly connect each bombing in a clear-cut serial plot. Although the metal plates link the first of the suspected series, the bombings at the Games, with two bombs that exploded at the Atlanta abortion clinic last year, the authorities have not found similar metal fragments in the Birmingham case.

And other evidence has helped the authorities trace links among the bombing rubble. Ten days ago, Federal agents connected one of the Atlanta abortion clinic bombs and the fatal bombing at a Birmingham clinic to Mr. Rudolph through an unusual type of one-and-a-half-inch flooring nail that matched nails found in a storage shed rented by Mr. Rudolph in North Carolina.

But the nails in the Birmingham and Atlanta abortion bombs do not appear to match nails used in the Centennial Park bomb at the Olympic Games, officials said.

The prospect that the bombings are the work of a single individual or groups led to a meeting of top officials at the headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Investigation here on Wednesday. At the meeting, the bureau's Director, Louis J. Freeh, assigned more agents and ordered a reorganization of the case. He placed the inquiry under the command of the agent who led the F.B.I.'s Unabom investigation, Terry Turchie.

But the changes, which were scheduled to take effect immediately, were put on hold today because of bitter complaints from officials at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms that they had been pushed aside despite their long involvement in what had been, until now, a largely cooperative investigation. Federal officials said that the Birmingham Police Department also objected, arguing that a reorganization would diminish the attention paid to the bombing there and the death of one of its officers.

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The rift between the two Federal agencies grew so hostile that the Deputy Attorney General, Eric H. Holder Jr., stepped in to mediate. Law-enforcement officials have spent weeks searching for Mr. Rudolph, who has been charged only with the Birmingham bombing on Jan. 29. They said today that they did not have enough evidence, at this time, to charge him with the other bombings. But the officials said that the new evidence of matching metal parts had persuaded them to intensify their search for Mr. Rudolph.

So far, the search has focused on the rugged wilderness area of western North Carolina where Mr. Rudolph, a part-time carpenter, has sometimes lived. The officials said that Mr. Rudolph's trail has grown cold and that they suspected that he might be hiding among the vacation cabins deep in the woods, perhaps in a house intended as a refuge from the authorities.

Investigators first linked Mr. Rudolph to the Birmingham bombing after witnesses saw a truck near the abortion clinic that was later traced to Mr. Rudolph through its license plate.

Federal authorities have theorized for weeks that a connection existed among the bombings, along with another attack at a gay nightclub in Atlanta.

Federal authorities have not unearthed a motive that would connect all of the explosions. But they have focused on theories of anti-Government groups or individuals motivated by hate.

Under the F.B.I.'s reorganization, Mr. Turchie, who headed the bureau's effort to track down Theodore J. Kaczynski, the Unabomber, would supervise the sprawling teams of investigators if the reorganization takes effect. The Birmingham investigation would be folded into the team effort in Atlanta, involving several agencies.

In the latest bombing, the F.B.I. and firearms bureau had cooperated smoothly, with the latter operating as the lead agency for crime scene efforts and forensic laboratory work while the F.B.I. remained in overall control of the investigation.

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A version of this article appears in print on February 27, 1998, on Page A00021 of the National edition with the headline: Officials Link Clinic Blasts And Bombing At '96 Games. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe